Since we highlighted books for moms in 2011, we thought it only right to balance things out by recognizing good reads for dads. Posting the day after Father’s Day seemed like excellent timing.
Sadly, we couldn’t find an equivalent or, more importantly, an appropriate “Porn for Dads” title to suggest on par with the Porn For New Moms book that inspired our Mother’s Day 2011 piece, so we decided instead to focus on books that consider parenting from the dad’s point of view.
Before our search began in earnest, we took a little detour and our thoughts veered towards favorite father figures from young adult literature.We reminisced, of course, about “Pa” from the Little House on the Prairie series that marked our childhoods. What wasn’t to like? He rode horses with bravado, played lullabies on the fiddle, could hunt and gather like no one’s business, fiercely loved his wife and kids and was darn handsome to boot (one look at Michael Landon in the TV series proves this to be true).After this brief trip down memory lane, we refocused and began looking for modern-day dads who write about and speak to the particular joys and challenges of millennial parenting. We realize that times are very different from when Pa was taming the frontier and that the noble Atticuses of the world raised their children over fifty years ago. So for this post we found fathers who are charting the journey now. Their accounts are fraught with occasional stumbles, honesty, and always humor. So here it is - a list of great gifts for your favorite dads or great reads for yourself about and by dads:
Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon (2009) – A collection of essays by a well-known and well-reviewed author, whose topics cover everything from the positive traits embedded in the loneliness of a suburban childhood, to questions from one’s children about one’s own use of drugs, to being raised by a single mom, to living with a complicated passionate wife, to being in Chicago with his young son when Obama won, to watching a daughter’s bat mitzvah. But ultimately the essays, so very often simultaneously poignant and funny, are about the questions one encounters in trying to live a life. Mr. Chabon’s answers and more importantly his questions, have me thinking, and also looking forward to reading his upcoming piece of fiction – Telegraph Avenue: A Novel (September 2012). Read this if you are questioning things yourself – his insight and experiences might just propel you in an unknown direction. ~ J. Lisa Christie
Father’s Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son by Buzz Bissinger (2012). This is not just a book for dads but one for all parents. ”Father’s Day” is a moving, exceptionally well-written and extremely honest memoir about a cross-country road trip that Bissinger takes with his 26-year-old son, Zach. It is a book that, as he explains it, has been in the writing for many years, since his twin sons Gerry and Zach were born three minutes apart. This short three minutes made a big difference in each of their lives: Gerry went on to live a “normal” life filled with girls, college, and graduate school; Zach, who experienced oxygen deprivation was effected cognitively and has spent his life in special programs and under the care of his parents. Traveling across America with his son Zach, Bissinger explores his journey as a father, his relationship with his own parents, and the complexities of his own adult journey. Father’s Day is about the expectations of parenthood and, in the case of Bissinger, the reality of the experience of raising an extraordinary son. (Note: If the name Buzz Bissinger sounds familiar, he is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and also the author of Friday Night Lights).
Shortlisted – only because we haven’t quite finished it yet:
Dan Gets a Minivan:Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad by Dan Zevin. His 2002 book – The Day I turned Uncool:Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-up was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and has been optioned by Adam Sandler for a movie.
